Chapter Eleven: Precautions

He was up early, watching the sun rise. Dense shades above, bright orchids below. How like the sunrise I feel, he thought in a moment of passing clarity. Still opaque on the surface, but light is starting to show.

Here at the window, naked and contrapposto, he turned to his companion in bed. You are the light that wakes me. I felt like night for so long, until you showed me what day could be.

He shook his head at the cloying comparison. If I'm not careful, I'll turn into one of those sappy poets writing about the moon in June. He thought about coming back to bed, sneaking an arm around his lover and, depending on the response, drifting back to sleep… or drifting his hand down.

Somewhere between lust and helplessness. That is where you have remained.

He wished he could be more vulnerable, more open. He wished he could tell his bedmate that he was frightened, so frightened that he would lose him. That their relationship cost him so much more than he was letting on. That he wanted to break down but had to be strong. That he'd had to be strong for the sake of others his whole life.

A strong hunger gripped him, made him want to wake his lover and enter him, invade him with his fingers and his tongue and his cock. Invade him until they were no longer two separate beings, but merged into a single essence that no longer felt so empty and alone. He recognized this carnal urge as covetousness.

He couldn't tear himself away from the window. This is what craving feels like. It's been so long I'd almost forgotten it. What a goddamn mess.

His partner exhaled, almost as if he was waking up. He shifted in the bed, rolled over, pulled a sheet over himself, and was silent.

As if pushed into moving again, he drifted to the bottom of the bed, fingers slowly moving over the soft sheets, grasping them. Pulling them a few inches down, then a dozen. Pulling them over his partner's naked body, revealing shoulders, chest, stomach, hips -

His breath caught in his throat as they continued down, pelvis and thighs and calves. Soon, the sheets were clutched in his hands, his partner bare and sleeping and prone. And vulnerable.

Breakfast was bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. David sat at the island behind the stove and watched, almost in fascination, as Nigel took out a cheese grater and deftly shredded the potatoes, then patted them dry with a paper towel. Nigel caught him looking particularly absorbed and laughed. "I know, it's an old habit from my grandmother. She owned a restaurant and every morning she would grate potatoes and throw some lemon juice on them. I'm sure I could just buy them frozen and save myself the trouble, but," he shrugged and dropped them into a cast iron pan coated with hot oil, "it's more nostalgic for me this way."

David chuckled. "You, nostalgic?"

Nigel grabbed another pan and started layering the bacon with his back to David. "What do you mean?"

"Just," he fumbled, "just that's it's so unlike you. You're so good at living in the present and planning. I guess it seems odd to hear you get sentimental."

"Ahhh. Yes, I keep that fairly tucked away, for the most part."

"Why?"

He paused, but it wasn't a pause to find the words. It was hesitation. "My first couple of years teaching, I was more brash, more quick to show emotion. I wasn't afraid to talk about current events in the classroom and show how they made me feel, maybe invite the kids to the discussion. They were a little older, maybe fifth or sixth grade, so I figured they would be mature enough for the subject material. I didn't think it was controversial, some town legislation or local protests.

"There was that big hoopla years ago about raising the interest on loans for small businesses that I was strongly against and quite vocal about it. Turns out, kids are sieves as well as sponges. The information ran right through them to their parents. 'Mr. Ratburn hates big businesses.' 'Mr. Ratburn thinks that the city is being unfair.' 'Mr. Ratburn says that banks don't care about people.'" His voice was tinged with bile at the memory. "Rather than bringing it up to me, the parents went right over my head and talked to the principal. He defended me – we were good friends and he knew that my intentions were good, that I wanted these kids to have a civic mindset and not just try to brainwash them with my personal issues – so they disregarded him and took it to the superintendent.

"Now, Superintendent Torbit had just stepped into her role and was already facing scrutiny. She was from Crown City and nobody thought she would understand the needs of a much smaller community. Nobody thought she could fill the shoes of the man before her. Hal Sanders was a loud, arrogant jackass who had friends in high places, drank like a fish, and sexually harassed his administrators – including a good friend of mine, who ended up quitting her job. But at least he was from Elwood City." His lip curled back at the memory.

"So I can't blame her for what she did. My suspension gave me time to think. I came back to work determined not to let a single original thought in my head escape. I followed the syllabus religiously. I never asked how students felt about anything, shied away from community events. I kept them all at arm's length and watched as they moved from grade to grade, waiting to be told how to think and act and respond. In a couple of years, it was no longer something I had to consciously try to do. It was just part of me."

David listened silently. Nigel had chilled considerably, as if he had inadvertently rubbed a wound that he'd thought healed.

"I started teaching third graders," he concluded. "They're still capable of so many opinions that I can react to them, rather than ask them an open question and watch as they scramble for the answer.

"But lately, that hasn't been enough for me. I watch the brightest kids in my class move up, kids who weren't shy about offering their views on anything, kids with charisma and charm and a zest for learning. And by the time they graduated, it had all been siphoned from them. They either became quiet little puppets who assimilated or troublemakers with a scarlet letter.

"And I fear that I will burn out. This job will take everything I love and spit it back in my face. I will be bitter and my 'sentiment' will be all I have left."

The only sound was the oil and grease popping on the stove.

"Nigel," David murmered. "Why haven't you told me about this?"

The words were spoken with a sudden helplessness. "I don't know. I suppose… I wanted to be strong for you."

He found himself brought into David's embrace, held close, their hearts beating next to each other. He breathed him in.

"Let me be strong for you now," the voice whispered hoarsely in his ear.

David drove home sometime that afternoon to change his clothes and take a shower. As he pulled into the driveway, his heart stopped in his chest.

His wife's car was already in the garage.

He thought about pulling out and driving away, but something stopped him. What was it?

Resolution.

He stepped inside with some trepidation, padding quietly into the kitchen to look for her. A thousand thoughts ran though his head. Did she forget something? Did she bring the kids? Why is she here? Has she talked to a lawyer? What do I say? Does she want something from me? What mood is she in?

He heard her upstairs in their bedroom. Her bedroom. He headed up as though he were floating, he couldn't feel his feet. He had no idea what to say to her. The bedroom door was closed.

He lifted his hand to knock… and then lowered it. Turned around. Chickenshit. Coward. Too afraid to face—

The door opened behind him. "David, what the fuck are you doing?"

He jumped and whirled around. "I'm sorry! Jesus!"

She stared at him with a face devoid of patience and emotion. Obviously she saw his car from the window, heard him coming up the stairs. "Do I want to know where you've been?"

"Maybe not. But I'll tell you anyway."

She steeled herself, holding onto the door fame as if it were the only thing keeping her on her feet.

"I've been at Nigel Ratburn's."

A long stare, unbroken. A mutter, almost inaudible. "I knew it."

And it all spilled out of him. "Jane, I'm so sorry! I haven't been happy for so long, it's not enough to be content, I just wanted to feel things again and when I saw him at the school he was just so understanding. I didn't mean to hurt you so much, the sneaking around and lying and pretending that our life was good enough."

He sounded hysterical, his words were coming out too fast and she still said nothing, gave him nothing to react to.

"I know you want to leave me, take the kids and just go, never see me again. I take full responsibility and I will do whatever you need me to, just please, please don't take my kids, please don't tell them I'm a horrible man, please don't tell them I'm a bad father. Please Jane, please… please…" he sank down, weeping openly now, chanting. "Please, please, please…"

She stood there. Her arm was no longer on the door frame. She did not need to support herself. Finally, she spoke over his keening, a hateful hiss.

"You're pathetic, you're fucking pathetic. You unfaithful bastard, you run off to your son's male teacher complaining that you're not happy and the two of you fuck three times a week under the…" She spat the word out. "…the pretense that you're working late. Spending nights and lying to me, lying to your goddamn kids. And you have the audacity to ask me not to take them away from you." Her tone got louder. "And you think you can try to control the situation by just admitting it to me? You think you can sway me with your confession? No, David! I will never forgive you! I hate you, you cocksucker!"

The literal insult made her rage boil over, the vile act now an image in her mind, and hiccupping with anger, she launched at him with a scream and they tumbled together down the hallway, smacking into a side table that buckled and broke over them. Her fists connected a few times until he was able to grab her wrists and pin them down, her legs tangled with his until they rolled by the stairs. Her strength terrified him, he fought to control her and defend himself at the same time and was failing both. She wrenched a hand free and raked his face, her knee connected with his stomach and knocked the air out of him, he managed to get her back until she rolled him over, each of them inching closer to the stairs. In a sheer panic, he cried, "Jane, stop, you'll hurt yourself! Jane – not the stairs!"

With a mighty launch she propelled them down tumbling, the rail snapping and scratching across his back in a long fiery lick as he broke from her grip and fell sideways to the floor and she hit the opposite wall with her head, denting the plaster and knocking herself out.

He lay there, panting, temporarily stunned. His shirt was ripped, his head felt heavy, his arms and legs ached and his back burned. He looked for his phone and dimly realized he'd left it in the car. Slowly, shaking, he rose and limped outside, swung the door open in a sweating arc, fumbled with the password and dialed 911. He didn't remember giving his name or address, and as he slumped to the grass as his adrenaline drained from him and was replaced with fatigue and pain, he wondered briefly if he could stay conscious long enough for the distant sirens to arrive.